Well - Hello There

And ,  How Are You?   My name is EDGAR and I have found a new home in this beautiful bottle tree house .   Look, there is more -

This is a very good place for me because it is sheltered against the wind and it is somewhat hidden so any young humans that may think of a little mischief don't know I am here !

And , it won't be long before all those figs in the Fig Tree behind me will be ripe and ready for some sweet pleasure eating !

Those figs are everywhere !

 With this super hot weather it won't be long before they will be soft, purple and juicy .

This year the tree is huge even though I trimmed it quite severely last fall .  Perhaps the daily hand watering of the garden has coaxed it to exceed all expectations .

A couple more photos that may be of interest .  On the right of the photo you can see the trunk at the base of the Fig Tree .  Now notice the large roots growing on the surface of the ground.

I have never seen anything like that before .   I think it is like that because the ground is filled with so much rock .   Yes, it is my NEMESIS again !  THE ROCK .
It trails out in all directions .  At least I know the Fig Tree is on my side and isn't a quitter !

I am beginning to marvel at the fact that there is any semblance of a garden here especially since there has never been a professional landscaping company involved which would mean that loads and loads of rich soil would be trucked in .  The piles of nice dirt  (only a gardener would call dirt - nice.  Am I right ?)  were so tall and so many that I could not see over them .  I saw that with two of my neighbors, one across the street and one next door to my house .

How about a little trivia for you  .  There is evidence of a mine (probably gold)  on my property. Actually close to where the blue bottle tree is planted.  For the longest time my plants would disappear .  YES, just disappear !   And, after some PI work on my behalf, I could see that I could not see ( how do you like that combination of words) the bottom of a very large hole and it was surrounded with a lot of very very large rock .  So, you know of my overabundance of unwanted rock.  Well, I just started throwing the rock down the big hole.  Eventually, my plants stopped disappearing! The mine is on the property line and I could see some openings on the other side .  For the longest time it was the home of a family of skunks . YES, SKUNKS. One night I looked out my living room window with a flashlight and I saw a Mama Skunk and eight little babies trailing behind her coming out of their home .  Living with nature is grand !

Oh, another piece of trivia.  Since, my house is the first house on the block that is outside of the original 1800's Township this property was used as the town dump !  Yes, you heard me right !

So, it is quite unique and surprising that I have my gardens and without professional landscaping.

Just one more comment.  The largest item I have dug up was a large bed spring .  And, there still are many odd shapes of metal poking out of the ground.

WOW, I really got on a roll, didn't I ?

Next time I'll tell you about last nights vandalizing in my neighborhood .  Interesting that I would write about "human mischief" at the beginning of this post before I even knew there was any such issue here at my home and the neighbors !

The end,  yes, really !  Be Good .  No mischief, OK ?

Mary

I Did It

Over two hundred Iris rhizomes have been planted. And, it was no easy feat for me! I guess the word tenacious comes to mind.

Or, maybe the word is Stupid!
No, really, I am so happy I was able to accomplish what I had set out to do. I finished planting on Saturday afternoon. Even though many of the rhizomes are quite small, they are already looking like they are taking hold and looking healthy. They may not produce a lot of flowers the first year but we just have to wait and see. 

On the other hand, they may surprise us especially since they are planted in a good foundation of new garden soil mixed together with planting mix. 

The temperature today was in the mid 80's and will help them get a good start.

The Yellow Chrysanthemums are looking great. So very cheerful!

Yes, I sure have handled a lot of rock in the past several days. 

You may wonder why my property has so much rock. One reason is that my property is the first parcel outside of what is called Murphys township which means the old historic buildings from the Gold Rush days. The house next door to me toward town was built in the 1800's. And the land was bulldozed to build my house. On the other side of my street there sits a house higher on the side of the hill.

Interesting, there are a couple spots on my property that were probably mine shafts. Years ago I noticed that one area where I was planting would continually loose all the soil. It was like it was just disappearing! So, it was time for me to take a better look at what may be going on. Sure enough, when using a large flashlight I could see down the hole that it went what seemed forever. So, I started throwing rock down the shaft. And, now, many years later the soil is no longer disappearing!

The large rock boulders that surround my property are the result of the massive bulldozing. The gold miners were mining for the veins and reefs of gold-bearing quartz which often were in granite. Without a doubt there is gold on my property from what I am told. I have many large beautiful rocks that would be fun to examine!

With everything going on in our National News it has been so nice spending a lot of time in my garden.

IN MY GARDEN there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The Thoughts grow as freely as the flowers and the dreams are as beautiful. - Abram Urban

I hope you had a Wonderful Weekend.

Mary